jpny01

A little earlier than that, gay characters had to be complete saints - they were all so flawless in every way that there was no way to include them in any storylines except to give sage advice to everyone else, and inevitably most of them were written out because it didn't make sense to pay an actor to sit around and do nothing.

We seem to have returned to that. We live in a very ideological age - you can't ever present someone in your "tribe" as flawed, hence we get the level of unhinged hostility to any character that's damaged or imperfect.

Some of the BL audience just wants fluff - cute boys being cute to each other - and to me that's the female version of lesbian porn for straight men. It's forcing a whole class of people into an archetypical box for their titillation. And I have absolutely no problem with that, but then maybe they ought consider how a gay man might view their pastime before engaging in sanctimonious preaching.

If a series isn't for someone, I'm happy to read even a lengthy post or even several about why they don't like it or find it problematic - but there are people who have spewed hate for dozens of posts in this thread - no arguments, no reasoning, just "makes me sick" etc.

I'll conclude by noting how polite and reasoned the [warning - simplification ahead] "Yong Jie is not a rapist" crowd is, and how viscerally OTT the "alcohol = rape" crowd is. I'm happy to discuss the topics brought up, but the level of personal attack is really disappointing in a BL audience - I would hope for tolerance and less judgment.

Having certainty that something is inherently morally wrong is what homophobia is about - how do we convince anyone to open their minds if we can't open our own?

The script itself is not messy at all - it's very tightly written with very little being extraneous. If you mean it's about messy situations, I couldn't agree more, and that's how you get compelling drama. If people want to watch cutesy fluffy stuff, then they avoid something that not only labels itself r-rated, it warns the audience again before every scene that contains adult material.

If you didn't care, you wouldn't have responded.

So showing holocaust footage is promoting genocide? Depicting something isn't promoting it. Drama comes from problems, not perfect people being perfect to each other. Yong Jie is depicted as seriously damaged, not as some ideal to copy.

How could anyone prefer Sarawat over Tine?

Agreed, but Y Destiny (you meant Y Destiny and not Gen Y, I believe - I keep mixing them up in my head) had Chap playing Tue, who I can just stare at and ignore everything else. I think I'll wait a couple eps and check back here to see what everyone thinks before I commit. The actors and production quality are good, but the writing... But you never know.

It's at about 12:15 when Ayato is talking to Tojo. It makes no sense and totally disrupts the flow of the scene. It's hard to remember specific things because the whole thing is so funny.

I can't find it - is it possible you typed it and didn't hit 'post'?

Yes, but his reaction was so strong that we needed to see him processing the situation or Sib having to work harder to win him over. Even if the ep had just showed Gene sitting alone and then presenting the flashback as his memories might have been enough, Maybe he has the damaged dragon there and picks it up and smiles. Something other than going from total meltdown to getting together with Sib like a lightswitch being flipped.

That sums it up for me too. The thing about early memories is that they tend to be flashes of images, but rarely the emotion you felt. I remember having to pee really bad when I was in kindergarten, ran home, and just about but not quite made it to the toilet. At the time I'm sure I felt intense shame and humiliation, but now it's just funny. With people it's different - I can remember times with my grandmother, and the feeling of loss is still there when I do think of those times, but I can't on an emotional level remember what I felt in any particular memory (although oddly scents bring back emotional memory).

So Gene is likely to remember warmth for Sib, but not any specific feelings - and that isn't going to be a hindrance to wanting to be with him now.

I'm an introvert and trust is very important to me. It's possible that I might react like Gene when I was that age, but I would also process events while alone and develop a more realistic analysis of the situation, and any anger or hurt I felt would evaporate the moment Sib showed up - actually probably when I saw 31 calls (or I might have thought he was a psycho). But we never saw Gene really processing, so even though his reaction was OTT, his getting over it so easily didn't flow either.

Anyway, after a couple of days, Sib should have put on a puppy-dog look (I would recommend while wearing one of those sleeveless shirts) and said he'd been waiting for Gene to recognize him but he's realized it's not going to happen and then come clean.

When was he an ass to Gene? Does it bother you that Gene is an ass to everyone and Nubsib is too with the exception of Gene?

The movie version has extra scenes that make the story much better. I almost hated this when I watched the series, but the movie was great. The scene where In Soo is at home imagining Sang Yi playing the keyboard is not in the series, and that's crucial to seeing that their feelings are mutual. The extended scene of them working on the song isn't there either, and that shows the connection between them, and these set up the ending better.

Have you ever replied to the wrong post and then felt super-embarassed when it's pointed out? That's me right now. I don't disagree with your post at all. Sorry about that!

There are of course people who want more sex in these, and there's nothing wrong with that - but I think most fans would agree you can't have too much intimacy, even if it's just teasing each other or splashing each other while swimming. Although even then they swim with all their clothes on, which is weird. I tend to resent it when the last three epsisodes are devoured by a manufactured crisis caused by a seriously implausible failure of communication or an evil ex-gf's scheming (which usually leads to a seriously implausible failure of communication).

But it is irrating when people argue for even LESS physical demonstration. When you love someone, you want to touch them, even if it's just cuddling on the couch watching a movie, or your knees touching under the table. IN some of these, the boys behave as if they'll catch some horrible communicable disease if their bf touches them.

I would agree that it's about as interesting as slow paste, but I'm not sure if I find it relaxing. (j/k about the paste).

I might have exaggerated a bit for the sake of drama. I actually thought Tossara En of Love was the worst BL I'd ever seen. There are worse ones in terms of quality of production, but some of those are really entertaining. I enjoyed So Much In Love because it was such a trainwreck, not despite it. It also had soem weirdly beautiful shots, as though a talented director seized control for 30 seconds every few episodes but then was chased away.

Cheat is like that too - it's full of horrible people doing horrible things, but it's so campy and OTT that it's fun. How many BLs have a flagellent nun and demonic pregnancy?

This series, though - maybe I can set it on 2x and get through the critiques of time spent studying and find the BL.

Yes - whenever they look at each other in a charged way, stereotypical 1970s porn music plays. You should really only do that if you're trying to be funny or satyrical, but sometimes it seems to be in serious moments.

It is normal to have a friend sleep over, but not if you're 7 and 12. That's weird, unless in a group setting.

The acting from the kids was excellent - that wouldn't have worked well otherwise. I'm still finding Kao too stiff and getting by on his looks and what he's getting from Up.

I think that analysis is correct, but I don't get why his world would fall apart. I guess it's possible because he's never felt this way for someone before and felt particularly vulnerable, but again, I feel like we needed to see more of what he was feeling. In a novel we can read what he's thinking. When we're watching the story instead of reading, we need to be shown. Because his crush on Sib has been shown in comedic terms, it hasn't had that gravitas for me. It's been cute and entertaining, but it didn't have that "totally crushed by a mild deception" gravitas.

A lot of people here have read the novel so they can fill in the blanks in their own heads. I'm relying on what I'm seeing to fill mine.

That could be, but we weren't shown that - we're having to fill in the blanks. It feels like there should have been a few more scenes - that's why I'm asking - the ep was shorter than past eps and I was wondering if this was a cut version or something.

I don't think Gene did anything wrong, as I said, but Aey hasn't either (yet). In public Gene often appeared to barely tolerate Nubsib's existence too.

When you're into someone, it's easy to not see the kinds of signals Sib is giving out. You have to work a little harder to miss it when it's as blatant as Sib is being, but then Sib treats everyone but Gene poorly.